


Bar Scene: Conversation

by Melthalion (kemelios)



Series: Bar Scenes [2]
Category: Sports Night
Genre: Angst, Depressing, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-01
Updated: 2011-03-01
Packaged: 2017-10-16 01:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/166752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kemelios/pseuds/Melthalion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>"Bar Scenes" is a series of unrelated stories written long ago with three things in common: they're set approximately 10 years in the future, they feature a bar, they're about one or more SN characters.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Bar Scene: Conversation

**Author's Note:**

> "Bar Scenes" is a series of unrelated stories written long ago with three things in common: they're set approximately 10 years in the future, they feature a bar, they're about one or more SN characters.

He almost didn't turn, but the ironic tone of that low, calm voice reached into his head and messed with his reflexes. He was used to people calling his name, to signing the occasional autograph. It was the price of being a local celebrity - even in a city like New York. Dan Rydell spun around involuntarily on the steps leading up to Pink's and recognized the dark-haired Jewish man grasping the railing and trying to catch his breath on the first step.

"I'd know that profile anywhere. You have a very distinctive profile, Dan."

"High profile. Over one million viewers a night check out my profile. Why you now?"

"I was across the street." He pointed vaguely in the direction of either a comic bookstore or the tattoo parlor next door where someone had spray-painted the word "MUM" on the dirty picture window and drawn a big red heart around it. "Picking up the new Perfidy Saga." Pulling the tiny CD from his pocket, he waggled it at Dan.

Comic bookstore, then.

"Let's get a drink, Jeremy." Dan tilted his head toward the bar and eyed the man below him doubtfully before turning and climbing the last few steps to the metal door. The blare of funky electronic music made him wince as he held the door open for his former coworker and friend.

Blinking at the flash of an old disco light as it whirled above their heads, Jeremy's eyes took in the crowded room and the notable absence of the fairer sex. "Alexander the Great died in a place very like this."

"Sodom or Gomorrah?"

"Sodom and Gomorrah were already the stuff of legend by Alexander's time."

"I see." Dan hurried to one of the few empty tables and crashed into the vinyl-covered chair with a sigh. "You got me, Jeremy. This is a gay bar. I, Dan Rydell, am having, well, am hopefully soon to be having," he scanned the room for a waiter and waved him over, "a well-deserved drink at a gay bar filled with gay men."

"As opposed to a gay bar filled with straight men?" Jeremy scanned the room, noting the jam-packed dance floor. Mustached and leather clad men rubbed up against daytime bankers and accountants dressed much like him in dress shirts with loosened ties. He wondered if they were aware of how stereotypically gay they all appeared.

"As opposed to just such a place, yes." He didn't want it to, but, as his reflexes seemed to be out of control without any conspicuous alcohol consumption on his part, he felt the corner of his mouth twitch at their familiar bantering.

"Hi, I'm Jamie. What can I get you guys?" Looking about fifteen years old with his platinum hair, cutoffs, and tank-top cropped to show the silver stud piercing his belly, the waiter smiled at Dan seductively. "Hey! You're that guy who does sports!"

"NBC. Six and nine."

"Hey, I didn't know you pitched for our team. Cool." The kid bent over to whisper in Dan's ear, slipping a slender arm around him and perching on the side of his chair. "If I can be of service, just let me know," punctuated with a barely perceptible tug of teeth on his earlobe.

"Oh, you can be of service, baby." Jeremy found his attention jerked from the dance floor back to the lap dance taking place at his own table. Dan's hand slid up the horny young waiter's silky thigh as the boy straddled his knees. A diversion seemed in order.

"Um, I'll have a whiskey sour, with a cherry."

"Me, too, only no cherry." Dan smiled and let the boy slide off of his lap, dismissing him with a little pat on the butt.

"So you're gay. I kind of figured that out when I saw you going into a gay bar, you know."

"I wanted to be absolutely clear."

"I find it gratifying that you're willing to fondle a waiter just to assuage my doubts."

"It wasn't exactly a hardship," Dan grinned. "So no doubt in your mind?"

"Not a one. You are gay." Jeremy paused, rolling up the sleeves of his blue Oxford, "Since when are you gay?"

He hadn't thought of his former partner, in, oh, at least a week. But there was something about Jeremy's honest curiosity as he leaned back bringing the front part of his chair off of the linoleum that brought to mind Casey's long legs and soft brown eyes.

"We know that sexual preference is linked to genetics," Jeremy continued.

"We know the exact genes, Jeremy. Note the thousands of babies aborted this year alone for having that very sequence of genes." Dan's voice was bitter as he continued, "And yet here I am, sports anchor for news channel four New York, having a drink with you in a gay bar. What is wrong with this picture?"

"So you're sorry I recognized you?"

"I'm sorry I'm gay, okay?" His voice shook. "I'm a closeted gay man in New York City. It's pathetic."

"Who knew that we'd get less tolerant in ten years? If you'd asked me in the last millennium I'd have predicted a much more Star Trek future."

Dan nodded. "I about pissed my pants watching the premiere of Star Trek: Another Journey."

"Finally, an openly gay character."

"Even if he was regularly roughed up by the first officer."

"Television mirrors society," Jeremy tossed out.

"Or is it vice versa?"

"Besides, it's subtext. Violence substituted for sexual aggression. Dorian gave Commander Jackson a hard-on. The commander beat the shit out of Dorian. And you still haven't answered my question."

"No wonder it only lasted three seasons." Jamie finally sauntered over with their whiskey sours, a little paper umbrella floated in Dan's. Jeremy reached for his cherry and sucked it from the stem while Dan tucked a ten into the back pocket of Jamie's skin-tight shorts and gave his pert ass a quick squeeze. The waiter giggled and wandered over to take the next table's order.

"So?"

"Let's see...I'm thirty-nine years old here. I'd say I've been attracted to men for the last twenty or so."

"So you were essentially out of your teens. Through puberty. Interesting."

"College," Dan confided.

"An experimental phase that never phased out?"

"I fell in love with someone." Jeremy waited for him to elaborate. "Someone unexpected. Someone straight and taken and completely oblivious."

If he'd been carrying a pipe, Jeremy would have looked exactly like a twenty-first century Sherlock Holmes. If Holmes wore glasses and drank whiskey in gay bars with minor local celebrities. He nodded his head knowingly, "Casey."

"Casey." Dan tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling while he considered how much to tell his old friend. "What gave it away?"

"The phrase 'completely oblivious'," Jeremy grinned. "You two were joined at the hip during 'Sports Night.' You obviously disliked Casey paying attention to anyone but yourself. I always wondered about you two."

Dan grimaced. "Despite many a drunken attempt on my part, Casey and I were never lovers." He smiled a little then, remembering one such disastrous try involving vodka, spray-on hair in a can, and a shared shower.

"What's Casey doing these days, anyway?"

"How should I know?" The words sounded clipped and bitter even to him.

Jeremy's raised his eyebrows and finished the last of his drink in one gulp. He looked around the room at the men dancing and drinking. A couple necked up at the bar, the older man gripping the younger's ass possessively. He ran his hand over his face and turned to Dan with a regretful smile.

"I've got to get home." He pointed at the gold ring on the fourth finger of his right hand.

Dan nodded.

"It was good to talk to you again, Dan."

"Right. You, too, Jeremy." They shook hands. Dan watched Jeremy give him a little wave from the door and lifted his glass with a rueful smile and a nod. The door shut. Dan took another sip of his drink, swishing the alcohol and lemon in his mouth before swallowing. It burned all the way down his throat.


End file.
